I wasn’t happy with my previous review of Decimation X3, and the developers weren’t either, so I 86ed it and decided to start again. Why didn’t the developers like it? Well, because I accused the game of being a Space Invaders Extreme clone. No no no, they said. I have it all wrong. It’s not a Space Invaders Extreme clone. It’s a re-imagining of a remake of a clone of Space Invaders, or something like that. Also, they created the original “extreme” Space Invaders game back in 1996 when I was seven years old and not actually playing games. Ohhhhhhh. And if you hand out that link to every single person who purchases the game, all confusion that the very good game you guys made is actually based off a completely different game and not the one people would reasonably assume it was based off of will be cleared up. It also took them two years to request that clarification, right in the middle of the busiest week I ever had at Indie Gamer Chick. I really love Matthew and Jason Doucette, but at the same time I wonder if they’re not one “H” away from having the most appropriate last name in human history.

So I played their not-a-ripoff-of-Space Invaders Extreme-that-any-reasonable-person-who-doesn’t-read-every-blog-post-by-them-would-assume-is-a-ripoff-even-though-they-actually-invented-that-idea and, surprise, I still dug the shit out of it. Decimation X3 is a seriously good game. It’s basically Space Invaders, only its a lot faster, has fancier graphics, lots of fire power, and bosses. You know, sort of like NO CATHY DO NOT POKE THEM WITH A STICK LIKE THAT! They’re Canadians. That means they’re probably armed to the teeth with hockey sticks and moose.

From this, you can tell that I was clearly mentally ill for assuming this game was an attempt at doing a $1 XBLIG version of Space Invaders Extreme and not a revamped version of a remake of a clone of Space Invaders. I should also be able to figure out just from playing the game that these guys invented the concept of an extreme version of Space Invaders.

Anyway, yeah, fun game. It supports four players, it has no online leaderboards, and the amount of bullets enemies fire becomes fucking absurd about ten minutes into it. Oddly enough, despite being atrocious at bullet hells, I was able to play Decimation X3 relatively well, with tons of near-misses even when there didn’t seem to be enough room to squeeze through the rain of enemy fire. Either I’ve gotten a lot better at these types of games or Decimation X3 has some of the most forgiving collision detection ever. I vote for option A.

It’s been a while since I played Decimation X3. I didn’t even really get a lot of multiplayer time with it the first time around. I had enough of a good time with just that part to move Decimation X3 from #64 on the Leaderboard to #38. That’s the biggest jump ever made. And they’re getting that because their game is genuinely good. Not because I called their game a clone or a ripoff of another game. Maybe the term I should have used was “heavily inspired by.” Though seriously, if you guys think the average gamer will see this trailer:

And not assume you guys were taking inspiration from something other than the games you were actually trying to get inspiration from, I don’t know what to tell you. I’d never heard of you guys before Indie Gamer Chick. I doubt 99.99999999% of gamers have heard of you. They’re not going to know you guys came up with the idea of an extreme Space Invaders. Besides that point, your Space Invaders ’97 doesn’t look like Space Invaders Extreme, and Decimation X3 does. It’s not the same game, but people see it that way. It’s like hearing Sony say “Super Smash Bros? Never heard of it! PlayStation All Stars was totally our idea!”

Decimation X3 was developed by Xona Games

$1 Probably should poke anyone with a stick that can solve Rubik’s Cubes like this in the making of this review.

Decimation X3 is Chick Approved and ranked on the Indie Gamer Chick Leaderboard.